LUCAS’S P.O.V.
Now that we were on the ground, we set up camp under the EX-5''s wing. None of us knew when help might arrive, or if it would arrive at all.
Garrett and I were busy trying to figure out where we had landed, but even after a couple hours we still didn''t figure out anything.
“You need to look at this-” he says, waving me over, “Don''t these plants look odd?”
I jump up and walk over to Garrett. He was kneeling by a small bush with flowers on it. There he was holding a medium sized flower, with a green stem and pinkish red petals, wrapped around each other in a bowl shape.
“Aureon doesn''t have these types of flowers” he says, “This just makes things more confusing”
“Are you sure you aren''t mistaking it for another type of flower?” I ask him.
Then he turns to me and gives me a funny look. “You are a pilot, and I am a Biologist. So no, I''m not mistaken.”
“You have a point” I tell him, “But there has to be an explanation for it.”
“I agree with you, but right now that explanation is beyond me.” He says, still examining the flower under a flashlight.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Avera walking up to us.
“Michael is starting to get worse, she says, “And we don''t have the supplies here to do much more”
“ah, fuck!” Garrett curses to himself. He quickly gets up and sprints his way over to Vita and Michael.
Now it was just Avera and I standing there.
“I should be the one that he blames,” she says, “I let them do the EVA.”
“Look,” I tell her, “you can blame yourself all you want, but your little pep talk from earlier is what got us on the ground in the first place.”
“I appreciate that, but I-” avera says, before getting cut off by Vita.
Vita calls out to us, “Avera! Come here, this is urgent!”
She quickly turns around and runs to Vita, and I follow closely behind her.
“There is shrapnel in his chest.. If we don''t get it out soon, I won''t be able to stop the bleeding.” Vita says as she unrolls new strips of bandages.
“I couldn''t find any surgical equipment, The cargo bay was a mess” Garrett says, “And I don''t think there is anywhere we could take him for surgery”
But then it hits me. We might have passed over a house right before we landed, why haven''t I thought of that?
“Wait!” I blurt out, “I think I saw the outline of a house a couple seconds before we crashed, but I''m not sure-”
“Well if there is, we should be going there right now” Vita says.
“She is right” Avera says, "We need to get to that house.”
Garrett Nods, and quickly runs inside the EX-5''s cargo bay. After a couple seconds he comes running out with a scrunched up stretcher.
Vita helps him lay it out besides Michael, and together, they lift him onto the stretcher.
“We are ready” Vita says, slinging her medical over her shoulders.
“Alright then, Lucas, show us the way.” Avera says to me.
Before I started, I took one last look toward a nearby tree. In front of it, a mound of dirt that was topped by a broken helmet.
It would be Scott''s final resting place. A great friend, who was passionate about his job and was willing to help his crewmates at his own risk.
Scott, may the spirit of exploration and knowledge be on your side.
Now leading the way, I took us through the path of spacecraft parts and ripped tree limbs.
Among some of the wreckage was a chunk of the right landing gear. Half of the wheel assembly was sticking out of the ground, while the half must have gotten lodged in the ground when it broke off.
And to my surprise, there wasn''t that much debris from the EX-5. The only noticeable thing was bits of torn parachute that coated most of the trees.
After maybe an hour and a half of walking through the woods, the trees started to thin out and open up to a large open field.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The forest floor led into tall unkempt grass. It was still fairly dark outside and we all struggled to make our way through the brush.
Things changed when we hit a a gravel road. The path itself didn''t seem to have been traveled much, but I was sure it led to the house I had seen earlier.
Occasionally the 4 of us stopped so Vita could replace different iv bags hanging over Michael. At one of these stops, she took the moment to ask a question.
“Do you know how much longer we will need to go on this road?” She said.
I looked around, I could tell we weren''t far away from the house.
“A little past that hill” I say, pointing towards a small upcoming hill.
“We need to hurry,” she says, “We are running out of time.”
I nod back, and we start walking again.
Once we get to the top of the hill, we finally get a view of what we were looking for.
A white, 2 floor house. It certainly did not look like a bad house.
With the house in view we pick up our pace, and practically start running to get to the door. We all made it the house''s back door and started to hit it.
“WE NEED HELP!” Avera yells at the door.
Nobody answers.
Then Garrett tries the same thing, but to no avail. Then he decided to turn his attention to the doorknob, and he tried to twist it, but it wouldn''t turn
Great, It''s locked.
“I''m sorry for this” I say as I unholster my survival pistol. Without much thought, I aimed at the doorknob and shot it.
PWAK-PWAK!
Avera quickly opens the door and enters with the 4 of us in tow behind her.
Breaking into somebody''s house wasn''t something I had in mind when I signed up for this mission. But then again I didn''t, you know, have everything going to shit in mind either.
Inside the house, it was even darker than it was outside. After groping the wall, I found what I hoped to be a light switch.
I flipped the switch and a ceiling light came on. Now that there was light, it was easier to make sense of where we were.
It looked like we were in a kitchen. In the middle of the kitchen there was an island counter that could be used as a makeshift operating table.
With Garrett''s help, Vita lifts Michael from the stretcher and onto the counter.
“Find some small knives and tweezers” Vita commands as she starts to remove Michael''s bandages.
Avera, Garrett and I all began to go through drawers in the kitchen. Some of the drawers I opened contained things I didn''t recognize. It''s odd, I thought. But I shouldn''t be judging what''s kept in this kitchen considering I just broke into it.
Unable to find anything useful in the drawers and cupboards, I frantically started looking on top of the counter. On the edge of the counter, I found a black box with many handles sticking out.
I grab one of the handles and tug on it, it slid out along with a shiny blade It''s too big to be used as a surgical knife, but it looks like there are some smaller knives in the box.
“Can you use these?” I say, showing Vita the array of knives.
“These might…” she says, finding the smallest knife. “Yeah this could work”
Avera popped up out of nowhere from behind the counter, “I''ve got some tweezers”
“Thank you,” Vita says before she grabs the tweezers and covers them in a sterilization fluid.
Vita begins her surgery to get the shrapnel. With a small knife, she delicately cuts further into Michael''s chest. He didn''t need much anesthesia for this operation considering he had already passed out before we landed.
Piece by piece, Vita pulled out some small, and large, bits of shrapnel. Some pieces looked like they had been parts of the EX-5''s fuselage.
“That is most of the shrapnel out,” she says, “but there is still some I wasn''t able to get.”
“He will be okay now, right?” I ask.
“With most of the metal out he should be fine, but I would have been to get the rest out if I had my surgical kit.” Vita responds.
“Why didn''t you have that in the first place?” Avera asks her.
“I don''t know,” Vita says, "Something as important as that should have made it onboard.”
Garrett interrupts the conversation while holding a small needle. “I found these in one of the drawers, we can use this to suture the wounds” he says.
Vita attached the needle to some string, so that it could be used to sew the ends of a wound closed.
With Garrett''s help, Vita closed the wound on Michael''s chest.
“Almost done,” Vita says.
She pulls the needle out of michael’s wound and cuts the end of the string with a knife.
“...finally” she says, “he''s okay now”
I breathe a sigh of relief at her words. The surgery was successful.
10 minutes later
After the surgery everyone decided to take the time to rest. Everyone was on the floor dozed off except for me. I figured it would have been a good idea to stay awake in case the home owner arrived.
While I was sitting there with nothing to do, I got rather bored. Might as well look around this house while I''m here.
This isn''t the most ethical thing I''ve ever done, but after the day I''ve had, I didn''t really care.
With a flashlight in hand I ventured out of the kitchen. The doorway led into a dining room of sorts with a decently sized table on one side. On the other, there was a large glass cabinet full of picture frames.
I walked up to the cabinet and shined my flashlight on some of the pictures. Most of the photos I saw had only 2 figures in them.
But upon a closer inspection, the figures in the photographs didn''t strike me as normal. One had pure white fur, similar to Vita, While the other had white and black. Except they didn''t have visors like protogens do.
Instead, there were 2 round eyes sitting atop and a snout that was ended with a black nose. Thats… not a protogen. Yes, they had ears, just not visor.
Not just their heads, but the things they were wearing looked unfamiliar. In one photograph, the figures were both wearing hats that said NASA in large bold letters. What the heck is a nasa?
I backed away from the cabinet, freaked by the things in the images. Whatever these things are… We really shouldn''t be in this house now.
I turned and bee lined it back to the kitchen. I grabbed Avera on the shoulders and shook her awake.
“Wh- What is it?” she said groggily.
“We need to leave, we should not be here”
“Lucas, we broke in. I know we should be he-” she says.
“No! It''s more than that,” I say, “I don''t think a protogen lives here.”
“What? I don''t know anyone else that would live here.” She says, rubbing her eyes.
“I saw some photographs of these weird creatures! We can''t stay here!” I tell her, trying to make her understand the urgency of it.
“Show me the photos.” She says, as she pushes herself up off the floor.
I led her to the dining room with the cabinet of pictures. I shine the flashlight on the ones I had looked at previously.
“What the…” Aver says, studying the photos.
“Fetch Garrett, he might know” she says.
I run back to the kitchen and wake up Garrett. His reaction to the information I gave him was similar to Averas.
After getting him off the floor, he followed me back into the dining room with Avera.
He, too, studied the photographs in the cabinets. “I don''t know what these people are,” he says, “But it freaks me out..”
“Wake up avera and get Michael back on the stretcher” Avera tells Garrett and I.
“Alright.” We say, but before we can turn and go back towards the kitchen, a bright light floods into the front room that''s connected to the dining room.
The 3 of us take out our pistols and slowly walk make our way into the room. The light is coming in through window shutters at the front of the room.
The light continues to get brighter until It stops.
Avera looks through the window and out towards the front of the house.
“Someone''s here,” she says, “You guys need to hide. Go, GO!” She yells at us.
“I''ll get everyone else, hurry!” She commands.
Garrett and Avera dart back towards the kitchen. We couldn''t escape, not after all the blood Michael had lost.
I found a closet in the front room and quickly opened it. It was full of boots and coats, so I ended up hiding myself behind some of the hanging coats.
Through a small crack in the door, I watched as the light shining through the window shut off. Then I heard a car door slam shut.
The lock on the door began to rattle as it was unlocked. Then in a quick motion the door itself was thrown open. Standing in the doorway was the white furred figure with the hat.
It walked through the door and forcefully closed it, making the entire house rattle.
“Stupid fucking interview!” The creature said in a feminine voice as it ripped off the hat.
It immediately threw the hat, and it hit the wall next to me. The hat fell to the floor, leaving the large white letters “nasa” gleaming in the moonlight.
Now I knew for sure who it was. It really was them from the photograph. I thought there was another person but at this point it didn''t matter.
The creature walked over to the couch that was in the room and basically face planted onto it.
“Why did I even try to join him at that stupid job-” the thing said, flipping over onto its back.
It sighed and stared at the ceiling.
“..Damn it!” it said, getting up off the couch.
“Where did that hat go,” it said, “I shouldn''t have thrown it… We''ve had these since we were kids.”
It walked over to the closet and looked down. “Ah..” it said, bending down to pick up the hat. …Then it noticed the closet door was open.
Oh shit.
It went to close the door but must have seen the shoes that I had stepped on.
It opened up the closet further and began to rearrange the shoes. Slowly it worked its way closer to my feet.
Suddenly I felt a tap on my boot.
“I don''t remember owning a metal boot-” it said, and it looked up at me.
Then we made eye contact.
2 beady Green eyes looked at me. White fur with 2 pointy ears, partially hidden by long white hair.
It froze, and began to whisper to itself, “what.. the… fu-”